


never grow up

by vigorous



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, GROWING UP ISN'T FUN, HOMESICK IWAIZUMI, Iwaizumi centric, M/M, Post-Time Skip, california iwaizumi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26465383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigorous/pseuds/vigorous
Summary: Iwaizumi is a stressed and homesick college student so he picks up a pen (and an old napkin) to write a letter to his Oikawa.or: growing up sucks and space metaphors are cool.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	never grow up

**Author's Note:**

> hello, i wrote iwaizumi being sad during university and missing oikawa. all to the tune of "never grow up" by taylor swift. you can listen to that here.

Oikawa, 

I’m writing this at 3a.m because I couldn’t think of anything else to do and this physics assignment is kicking my ass. Also, I haven’t eaten anything since the morning and I’ve consumed an ungodly amount of caffeine. I don’t know if I’ll ever send this to you but I have some things to get off my chest.

Growing up feels like the apocalypse is gnawing at your feet and you’re trying fervently to outrun it. If you slip up, if you decide to rest for a second, the smoke engulfs you and you become one with the ash. It’s like that for me but amplified. I’m drowning in assignments and there’s no volleyball team to distract me. There’s just these strangers with foreign tongues that I have to work ten times harder to understand. 

It’s these moments that make me miss being a kid. I miss middle school, no matter how shitty it might’ve seemed at the time. I miss high school and practice with our team. At least then our dreams seemed much closer. Going to nationals seemed more tangible than whatever the hell I’ve been trying to make come to fruition here in this foreign land. I miss having to look after all of you during practice and giving you small words of encouragement that perhaps go a long way. 

I do believe that we carry a piece of home within us wherever we go. Our childhoods are etched onto our skin in the form of memories but also in between the scars on knees that never fade away. There’re so many little me’s that have been engraved onto my soul. Hajime, six years old, first discovering volleyball with you. Hajime, fourteen years old, staying up watching Godzilla movies to distract himself from feelings for you that were seemed larger than life. Then there’s eighteen year old Hajime who’s trying so hard not to let himself feel too homesick. He, too, I suppose will be etched onto future versions of myself.

I guess that all of these feelings are a result of not being home but also unrealistic expectations. I thought that by eighteen, I’d have it all figured out. I thought that the universe would open up to me, that the stars would drip onto my hands and never fall through. The thought is silly in retrospect but back then it was gospel; a prophecy that will one day be realised. It seems, however, that the universe closed its doors on me without a warning. 

If time were to freeze right now, I would actually appreciate it. Not only because of the mountain of assignments that are due in the next week but also because I’m scared of what the future will bring. Or what it will take. It’s brought me California, but it took my childlike whims and crushed them under its feet. It’s brought me the promise of opportunity, a tiny whisper of volleyball dreams that might be revisited. Though, in the same breath, it’s taken you from me and left us hanging on through pixels on a screen, a biweekly video call that heals and breaks all the same.

For a second, every morning when I wake up, I think I’m back home. I’m filled with joy and then quickly reality sinks in, baring its sharp fangs and marking my skin. I remember that home is oceans away and it’s in these moments that I realise that I’ve never felt this alone. You were always stuck to me, like we were each other’s guardian angels. Now you’re someone’s else’s partner on a court on a much bigger stage and you could be someone else’s angel. I don’t know. I don’t know much actually.

All of this is to say to you, that I don’t want to grow up. I’m scared and alone and home only visits in my dreams. Home isn’t just Miyagi, I’ve learned now. It’s the feeling of belonging that comes only from found family. A feeling that seeps into your bones, inscribed like a tattoo until kingdom come. It’s this feeling that makes it hard for me to ever learn to embrace California like second skin or to wake up without an avalanche of blue crushing me beneath its weight.

You and I, we still hold on to that feeling. Though it will cut us open a million times, it’s shaped who we are today. I want to hold you in my arms and never let go. We’re two neighbouring galaxies orbiting each other and I don’t want our collision to happen millions of years from now. I want to collide - all our stars and our planets, all the little you’s and me’s that live within us - I want them to always be together. 

This letter may or may not reach you, I haven't decided. You probably already know all this, Tooru. You know you’re home to me, a tattoo on skin and bone and muscle. The world is ours for the taking, you told me before. Time won’t freeze for me, I know at least that much. I never wanted to grow past seventeen. Now I’m at the cusp of nineteen and everything is a lot scarier in this city. I want to go back home. I don't ever want to grow up.

Yours,  
Iwaizumi.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this or it at least made you feel something. leave me a comment so i can scream to my friends more.


End file.
